Michael White Made Wijaya

Biography

In English

Made Wijaya was born Michael White in Sydney, Australia. He arrived in Bali in 1973, having jumped ship and swum ashore in a rainstorm. A student of architecture, he first of all intended the visit as a short break from his studies, but his fascination with Bali's rich culture and tradition led him to move in with a Brahman family in South Bali. After various jobs teaching tennis and English, working as a tourist guide and photo-journalist, he began contributing to guide books before being asked to design the gardens of the legendary Bali Oberoi.

More than 600 gardens later, Wijaya is a world renowned tropical garden designer whose company, P.T. Wijaya Tribwana International, has a 500–strong team of artisans and "garden commandos," as he calls them. He travels between his Bali base and Singapore, India, Spain, Morocco, Hawaii, Australia and Mexico to weave his magic.

A recognized authority on tropical gardens and South East Asian architecture, he has published five books, The Complete Stranger in Paradise; Balinese Architecture: Towards an Encyclopaedia; Tropical Garden Design (Archipelago Press and Wijaya Words, 1999); At Home in Bali (Abbeville Press, 2000); and Architecture of Bali – A Source Book of Traditional and Modern Forms (Archipelago Press and Wijaya Words, 2002). He also contributed to Tropical Asian Style and was the main author of a pocket guidebook to Bali.

His signature column "Stranger in Paradise–Diary of an expatriate in Bali” at (www.strangerinparadise.com) and Hello Bali monthly magazine and Jakarta Post for trightly) and "Poleng" magazine and as well are much loved across the land